When the parent of a literary bantling pleads poverty
to the world as his motive, it hurts the feeling critic’s mind
to be forced to deny them both protection. Yet how, but by speaking
the truth, is he to fulfil his engagement with the public?—If
the farrier’s boy will quit his horse-shoe, and conceit himself
fit for a higher business, whose fault is it that he lack the comforts,
or even necessaries of life? Surely the goldsmith is not bound in
charity to admit him into his shop, and permit him to waste his metal,
in order to gratify his vanity. On the contrary, he cannot do him
so great a service as by earnestly persuading him to return instantly
to that calling for which alone he is qualified. The author of the
work before us tells us that it will prove more than a joke to him
if it do not succeed. In sincerity we are sorry for it, but we cannot
give countenance to a writer who is so ignorant of his mother tongue
as to call the ‘heart and the language’ synonymous.
Let the reader take the following sample, and judge for himself.

“Was I permitted, by the strong evidence of
my own conviction, to doubt the fair statement here before us,”
exclaimed Edmund, after a deep silence, “still might my bosom
again become tranquil; still might a sense of Charlotte’s progressive
perfections charm me into composure; but truth, like the elementary
bolt, commissioned by its electrical force to the quick destruction
of some lofty spreading tree, strikes deep to the very centre of my
hopes,—dries up the foliage of my fancy,—and leaves me
a parched and withered ruins.” P.49.

The author of this tale modestly assures us that
it contains nothing which may be literally termed new, and that the
characters boast not of originality. We fear, however, that that diffidence
of Mr. Littlejohn has rendered him blind to his own merits: because,
[331/332] in our opinion, there is much of what is new in the work,
and much which he may safely call his own. For instance, what can
be more novel and original than the following passages, in which he
talks (page 4th, 1st vol.) ‘of hours passed in a giddy round
of fashionable intemperance, till the tender incitations of
a husband became lost in the conflict’: (p. 23.)—‘prognosticating
that genuine affection was concerned;—(P. 105.) ‘Dimming
the native lustre of his eye with a cast of piteous eccentricity!”—(p.
116.) of ‘displaying a flag in a kind of terrorum’;
(p. 121.) of ‘the mortification of the disappointment adding
force to the erasible particles’;—and (p. 161.)
‘of other etceteras.’

Novelty and originality, also, are not here confined
to words and phrases, but are conspicuous in the situations of the
dramatis personæ, and in the poetical excursions of
the writer’s fancy. Can we look for a more novel situation than
that of a gentleman fainting away, and supported by a lady into whose
arms he fell? (vide p. 170. vol. 3d) ‘he uttered a tremulous
sigh, and but for the timely exertion of Mrs. Fairfax would have sunk
on the floor, she supported him in her arms, and her maid, whom her
cries brought to her assistance, administered a volatile essence,
which soon again brought back pulsation.’—We have often
heard of “disarming by a look,” and have generally regarded
it as a mere metaphorical expression: but we see it actually exemplified
in this work: (Page 234, vol. 3.) ‘Fairfax had been but stunned
by the blow, and soon recovered sufficiently to see his situation—he
started to his feet, and in order to impede their flight,
produced a pistol;—he presented it, but in doing it his eye
met the sever frown of Edmund. A pang of conscious guilt enerved
his arm, and the instrument fell from his hand.’—We shall
quote one more passage, as a specimen of this gentleman’s poetical
capacity: (p. 49. vol. i.) ‘but truth, like the elementary
bolt, commissioned by its electrical force to the quick destruction
of some lofty spreading tree, strikes deep to the very centre of my
hopes,—dries up the foliage of my fancy,—and leaves me
a parched and withered ruins [sic]!!’

In chusing the profession of an author, Mr. Littlejohn
has certainly made a ‘Mistake,’ and we apprehend
that he may find the consequences of it to be ‘beyond a
joke.’